There’s Peer Pleasure at Metropolis
Metropolis’ newest gig, PleasureDome, may just be the sexiest young thing in the county.
From the pulsating grooves to many of the fashionable patrons, the Sunday-only event oozes with sex appeal. Beefy, Chippendales-like go-go dancers shake it on the go-go platforms, while screens show colorfully abstract videos of studly men, and another screen features a live shadow dancer. A state-of-the-art computerized light and sound system drenches the whole scene, which includes the distribution of free condoms, bearing the Metropolis logo, from CondomRevolution in Costa Mesa.
Healthy attendance at last week’s opening reflected an open-minded mix of sexes and sexual preferences, unified for the sole reason of getting in one more night of partying before the weekend is officially over.
DJ Eddie-X of Los Angeles’ Temple-fame rotates an infectious run of house music that--as the crowd showed--was hard to resist. Dance fools who haven’t visited Metropolis in months because they didn’t like the obtrusive posts that split up the dance floor will love the recent changes: The posts are gone, consolidating the area into an open space.
The go-going Fettish Boys, clad in very little, elicit tips from onlookers of both sexes. On opening night, one Fettish Boy dressed in an original Van Buren sequined wind-breaker and mesh top studded with the letters F, A, G. In-your-face fashion is always the most fabulous.
Besides the free condoms, you practitioners of social responsibility will appreciate that drinking beer here can actually help a local AIDS organization. Sunday marked the Metropolis debut of Pink Triangle, a micro-brewed light beer that, according to promotional cards on the club’s tables, was “created for the nation’s Lesbian and Gay Community.” The Iowa-based brewery promises to donate no less than 25% of its profits to AIDS organizations in areas where the beer is sold.
Still, Pink Triangle didn’t outdo the night’s $2 drink specials of 16-ounce drafts of Bud, Coors Light and Miller Genuine Draft. After 9 p.m., the price of each rises to $3.25. Imported brews are $4 all night. Also at the bar: wells, $3.75; premiums, $4.25 to $5, and glasses of wine run $3.75 to 4.75. Bottled water and sodas are $2.
Metropolis’s in-house sushi bar, Octopussy, serves it up from 7 to 11 p.m. Selections are $3 to $12. The kitchen also has available California cuisine, such as salads, pastas and sandwiches, $5 to $7.
Although the dance floor and main bar saw the greatest action on opening night (it took considerable patience to maneuver those areas or just to order a drink), the gorgeous rosewood pool tables were never wanting for players, even at $12 an hour.
* PLEASUREDOME
* At Metropolis, 4255 Campus Drive, Irvine.
* (714) 725-0300.
* Sundays only, 7 p.m. to 2 a.m.
* Cover: $5.